With municipal elections coming up this Fall, now is a key time for Manitobans to be pushing candidates to make ambitious commitments on climate. Much of our work at Climate Action Team is on climate action (and inaction) at the provincial level, but many emissions reduction solutions can come from the municipal level as well.
Municipalities have significant influence over crucial climate-related services and infrastructure, such as public transit and active transportation, zoning and road construction, landfills and waste disposal, and the management of city buildings. This fact matters a great deal, given the upcoming municipal elections and the City of Winnipeg’s update to its Climate Action Plan.
What is Winnipeg’s Climate Plan? In 2018, The City of Winnipeg published its Climate Action Plan which committed to reducing community-wide emissions in Winnipeg by 20% below 2011 levels by 2030, and highlighted the opportunity of decarbonizing transportation through public transit, walking and biking, and electric vehicles.
In this article we review the major sources of municipal emissions, and outline five key actions that municipal officials could champion to be climate leaders.
Where Do Municipal Emissions Come From?
In Manitoba, most municipal emissions come from transportation, buildings, waste, and industry. The dominance of certain emission sources will vary by municipality: industry accounts for a greater share of emissions in Brandon (fertilizer production) and Portage la Prairie (potato processing), while large landfills in Winnipeg mean the city has a higher percentage of waste-related emissions than others. But the biggest province-wide culprits are gasoline-powered SUVs, pick-up trucks, and cars, along with the use of so-called “natural” gas (or fossil gas) for space and water heating in buildings.
As an aside, emissions counting is a funny business. Typically, estimates include only emissions generated directly within jurisdictional boundaries, so pollution from producing imports (such as food, manufactured goods, or oil and gas) isn’t attributed to the jurisdiction. So if you’re wondering why we’re not talking about livestock, fracking, or plastics, that’s the reason—although it’s obviously all connected.
Here are five actions that Manitoba municipalities can take to cut climate emissions, with added benefits for health, comfort, cost of living, and recreation. We hope these can be helpful for candidate forums and debates, surveys and polls, and interactions during door-knocking and other events. It’s far from exhaustive—we don’t include the vital work of climate adaptation, food policy, land-use planning, or protecting and expanding trees and other natural spaces, for example. Rather, this list highlights a few of the many important municipal opportunities to reduce emissions in the key sectors of passenger transportation and building heating.
1. Commit to Significantly Increasing Transit Operating Spending and Call on the Province to Restore the 50-50 Transit Funding Agreement
As you may have heard by now, CAT is currently running a campaign to call on the provincial government to restore the 50-50 transit funding agreement, which would split all new operating transit spending between the municipality and the province (after service revenue, such as fares, is deducted). This policy could significantly improve transit reliability and frequency by putting more buses on the road, which could, in turn, help reduce emissions from personal vehicles. It would also generate good green jobs, reduce transportation costs, and improve access to employment, grocery stores, healthcare, education, and more. Municipal leaders should call on the Province to restore the transit funding agreement and commit to increasing municipal spending on transit operations by at least 25% by 2030 (which would amount to a 50% increase if the Province restored 50-50). The success of restoring 50-50 will ultimately hinge on ambitious municipal spending. Elected officials should also push for dedicated bus lanes and other transit priority measures.
2. Increase Investments in Active Transportation Infrastructure, Including Bike Lanes and Sidewalks
Public transit is ideal for longer commutes and trips. But walking and biking are often preferred options for shorter outings—especially in warmer months—and are frequently combined with bus trips. Another means of reducing reliance on personal vehicles is to make walking and biking safer, more desirable, and more enjoyable. There are many policy tools to promote active transportation, such as e-bike subsidies and sustainable commuting incentives. But the most important opportunity for municipal officials is to fund and prioritize active transportation infrastructure. This means ensuring that sidewalks are properly sized, universally accessible, attractive, and properly drained. Efficient and effective snow-clearing is also a must-have. When it comes to biking, municipalities should work to build more protected and well-connected bike lanes, traffic-calming infrastructure, and secure bike parking. More ambitious but highly effective measures to promote both biking and walking are lowering speed limits and establishing car-free areas.
3. Support EV Use through Local Zoning Bylaws, Municipal Fleet Electrification, and Charging Stations
The best forms of passenger transportation from a climate perspective (and for many, many other reasons) are public transit and active transportation. While all Manitobans deserve access to such services and infrastructure, many residents will continue to rely on vehicles regularly for the foreseeable future, especially in lower-density parts of the province. Municipalities also manage sizable vehicle fleets that will remain necessary. Electrification of transportation requires leadership from all levels of government, but municipalities can help accelerate the proliferation of electric vehicles through a combination of local zoning bylaws, municipal fleet electrification (including electric buses), and installation of more charging stations. Municipalities can also develop low-emission zones that limit or even ban internal combustion engine vehicles, providing greater incentive for drivers to opt for electric vehicles or alternative modes of transportation. There is also significant potential to collaborate with car-sharing services to improve access to electric vehicles and charging stations
4. Ban Fossil Gas Connections for Space and Water Heating in New Buildings
A logical step in the transition off of fossil fuels is to ensure that all new buildings use clean heating rather than gas-powered furnaces. Ground-source heat pumps (GSHPs) are an extremely energy-efficient means of heating and cooling buildings, especially when networked among diverse users such as homes, grocery stores, and indoor rinks. There’s a long track record of successful GSHP systems in Manitoba, now servicing thousands of homes, large commercial spaces like the Forks and IKEA in Winnipeg, and institutions like Manitoba Hydro headquarters, Canadian Mennonite University, and several community buildings in the Town of Île-Des-Chênes. Heat pumps can also be used for hot water.
By far the best time to install GSHPs is during building construction, rather than digging, drilling, and retrofitting after the fact. Phasing in a ban on fossil gas connections to new buildings would require owners and developers to use alternative heating options, such as district geothermal. Despite fossil gas heating being the second-largest source of municipal greenhouse gas emissions in Winnipeg, a City of Winnipeg committee effectively killed a proposal in late 2024 to consider a ban on fossil gas hookups for new buildings. Municipal officials representing gas-dependent residents should prioritize this policy as a first step toward cutting building emissions, following the lead of municipalities such as Montreal and Nanaimo.
5. Accelerate Energy Efficiency of Municipal Buildings With Retrofits, Heat Pumps, and Solar Panels
While the best time to make energy efficiency improvements is during construction, there are hundreds of thousands of existing buildings across Manitoba that require retrofits and heating electrification. Provincially, this work is led by Efficiency Manitoba, a Crown corporation offering many programs and incentives to help reduce electricity and fossil gas consumption. However, municipalities can also play an important role in this transformation by upgrading their own buildings—including city and town halls, community centres, libraries, and recreation facilities—with a combination of retrofits, ground-source heat pumps, and solar panels.
In addition to reducing energy use and emissions from municipal buildings, which is a worthwhile goal in itself, these efforts can help demonstrate the viability and benefits of efficiency upgrades to the greater community. Such investments would also help build local training and employment opportunities in the energy efficiency sector, which are necessary to scale up retrofits. As recommended in the City of Winnipeg’s Community Energy Investment Roadmap (CEIR), municipalities should also launch neighbourhood-scale building retrofit pilots that can take advantage of district heating opportunities.
Next Steps and Opportunities
As mentioned, these are far from the only climate policy changes required. Municipalities should also introduce organic waste bans and expand composting programs (including multi-unit residential buildings and the institutional, commercial, and industrial sectors); accelerate densification efforts and restrict urban sprawl; reallocate funding from road expansion to sustainable transportation; plant more trees; and advocate for stronger, well-enforced building codes. Winnipeg’s CEIR has many excellent proposals that offer viable opportunities for all municipalities. But the five policies discussed in this article are a solid starting point for any climate-responsible municipal official.
If you’re in Winnipeg, be sure to come out to the People’s Climate Mandate Townhall on June 11 to learn more about municipal climate policy opportunities and get connected with people building the movement.